Literary Gazette, 5th July 1823, Page 427-428
ORIGINAL POETRY.
A TALE FOUNDED ON FACT.
There is a little Vale, made beautiful
By its blue gliding river, and its fields
Of tall green grass, wherein the lark has built
Her little ones a nest; its orchards hung
With crimson fruit, cherries like Beauty's lip.
And apples like her cheek; and more than all,
Its lowly cottages, with their thatched roofs
No higher than the wilding rose can reach:—
There seems so much of quiet happiness
In the white walls o'er which the honeysuckle
Has wandered in its sweetness, and above
The door has formed a porch, mixing its white
And pink veined bunches with the scarlet flowers
And broad leaves of the bean! A little raised
From the ascending ground, is one that stands
Close to the rest, yet different from them all,—
For it is desolate!—the honeysuckle
Darkens the broken lattices with boughs
Heavy with unpruned leaves; the summer stock
In the small garden of the flowers and fruit,
Is trodden down and wasted, and the weeds
Are many, like the evils of this world;
The stool, where yet the straw hive stands, is left,
Deserted by the bees, for the bindweed
Has choked the entrance with its matted leaves
And cold pale blossoms. - - - It is Autumn now,
And all the trees are loaded; saving one,
Which stands with neither foliage, fruit, nor flowers,
Leafless and lifeless. And beside its trunk
